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Thursday, September 22, 2016

Ashley: What do you wish trans partners knew more regarding their cisgendered partners?Helen: That we feel all the stigma, too, and feel
personally at risk as a result of being with someone trans. My sense is
that they, in some ways, are understood – they are fixing a thing that
is wrong, being their true selves, however you want to put it, while
we’re just being dragged along for the ride. That is, we’re stigmatized
for choosing to be with you. Mostly, though, I’d want them to know we’re
often doing our best, and we don’t get a lot of compassion, and we
can’t really complain to friends because of the stigma against trans
people, so we tend to bottle things up, often to explode later.

Helen Boyd's En Gender blog is very popular and has been around for a long time. My Husband Betty was the first transgender book, authored by a cis-woman, that I read. I also read, and learned a lot, from her second transgender related book, She's Not the Man I Married. Helen's En Gender blog recently featured a conversation between herself and film maker, Ashley Altadonna. The interview is broken up into two parts and well worth reading.